1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a distributed method and apparatus that allocates a communication medium via efficient arbitration techniques.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, management of a communication medium requires either a centralized head-end to control arbitration among end-users (e.g., telephone stations or personal computers, for example) or end-users randomly competing for access. While centrally controlled arbitration may provide guaranteed access, an end-user must first arbitrate successfully before transmitting end-user information. This management scheme undesirably requires an arbitration overhead time to be added to a data transmission time as well as centralized arbitration hardware to manage the arbitration.
On the other hand, while overhead is avoided by random competition techniques such as Ethernet protocol, end-users are not guaranteed access. Thus, new technology is required to reduce overhead and guarantee access to communication mediums.